No Fluke: Nets Return to NBA Finals

JOSEPH WHITE

Published 7:00 pm, Sunday, May 25, 2003

AP Sports Writer

Kenyon Martin gave one emphatic prediction about the NBA Finals.

"Ain't no sweeping going on this year," the New Jersey forward said.

Actually, the way the Nets are playing, Martin could be selling his own team short. They've won 10 straight playoff games and swept two series in a row, having finished off the Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference finals Saturday night.

But Martin was thinking more about losing four straight, as New Jersey did in last year's finals against the Los Angeles Lakers. The Nets will again be the underdog, although they return as a more talented, more mature and less star-struck team.

"We feel like we're going to go in there and win it," guard Lucious Harris said. "Last year we didn't know what to expect. We were happy to be there. You got give credit to the Lakers. They didn't win three championships for nothing. It's a good feeling to get back."

But first, there's a long wait. New Jersey has a 10-day break _ an eternity for a basketball team _ before opening at Dallas or San Antonio on June 4. As coach Byron Scott is discovering, the drawback to being so dominant in the playoffs is that it leaves way too much time to kill.

"Five or six days is enough," Scott said. "Ten days is probably too much time. You never experience any thing like this during the regular season. It's going to mess up your timing."

And how will he manage the time?

"A little bit of everything," Scott said. "We're going to have a couple of days off, we're going to go hard, then we're going to go not-so-hard, then we're going to have another day off, then we're going to go hard."

At least the long layoff will give point guard Jason Kidd more than sufficient time to recover from a twisted ankle, the only scary moment for the Nets in Game 4. Kidd grabbed a rebound and his right foot landed on the foot of Pistons center Ben Wallace. The point guard lay on the court in pain while a hushed crowd rose.

But Kidd stayed in the game and immediately started a 13-1 fourth-quarter run that put the game away.

The Nets will naturally keep a keen eye on the San Antonio-Dallas series, which the Spurs lead 3-1.

If either Western Conference team consults Detroit coach Rick Carlisle for advice, his answer is: "Get back on defense." The Nets outscored the Pistons 94-15 in fast-break points in the series.

"If there was ever a Nets-Dallas series, I can't imagine what the scores would possibly be," Carlisle said. "It might be in the 130s and '40s."

The Nets' postseason run is even more surprising considering they lost four of their last five regular-season games and never quite looked like a team ready to make an impact.

Then the playoffs started.

"If you look back at the regular season and all we went through and to play as we have in the postseason, I think you would call it remarkable," Scott said. "Since the regular season's over, and the first day of practice for the postseason, our guys have been on a mission.

"Ten straight is great, but our guys aren't satisfied right now. We want to win four more."